Minh Hua's Blog

1 Background

"My Journey to the West" is a digital pet (think Tamagotchi) game inspired by Journey to the West, a classic Chinese novel written by Wu Cheng'en and 1986 hit TV show. The story follows five Buddhist pilgrims and their journey to the West to retrieve the Buddhist sutras from India.

The game features the main characters from the novel, namely Sun Wu Kong (Monkey King), Zhu Ba Jie (Pigsy), Sha Wu Jing (Sandy), Tang San Zang, and Bai Long Ma (White Dragon Horse). The player's goal is to keep the characters alive and healthy by feeding them, attacking enemies, slaying bosses, and leveling them up. Since this is a digital pet game, the primary objective of the game is keeping the pet alive. In terms of the story, the character (pet) will embark on a journey that spans 54,000 kilometers and lasts anywhere from 1 hour to 17 years (real-time) depending on the chosen difficulty. The character expends stamina (green bar) when they walk, which can be refilled with food. In each level, the character will encounter different enemies that spawn at a rate dependent on the chosen difficulty. When the player completes 75% of the level, the character will encounter a boss, which must be defeated to advance to the next level. There are 40 levels in total.

The characters will continue on their journey regardless of whether the player has the game open. The player can save the game, leave, and come back to find that the character has advanced a certain distance (determined by how long the game lasts). Just make sure the character is always fed and healthy or else the player will come back to the game to find a dead character.

2 Quick Start

On the title screen, choose "NEW GAME" to start a new game. In the next screen, tap on the character name to switch between different characters, who all have different starting base stats. Tap on the difficulty selector to choose between three difficulty modes: Easy, Normal, and Realistic. The only main difference between these difficulties is how long each level and the overall game last, and the rate at which the player gains experience points. Click "START GAME" to start the game with the chosen character and difficulty.

The status bars at the top of the game indicates the character's current health (red), current stamina (green), and current chi (blue). The character dies when their health reaches 0. The character will stop walking if their stamina reaches 0. Health and stamina can be refilled by feeding the character. Chi is used for special actions like super attacks, super healing, and boosting. The character automatically heals and regains chi at a fixed rate determined by the chosen difficulty level if their stamina is higher than 50%.

3 Controls

3.1 Feeding

To feed the character, click on the button with the peach. Feeding restores 10 points to the character's stamina and health. In order to feed the character, the player must have more than 1 fruit in the inventory. Fruit will randomly drop from the sky and can be picked up by tapping on them. The panel with the peach icon below the status bars indicates the number of fruits in the inventory.

3.2 Attacking

Tap on an enemy or boss to attack them. The enemy's health and name is displayed below their image.

3.3 Super Attack

Tap the super attack button to deal extra damage to the enemy at the cost of chi. In the beginning, a super attack deals 150% of the character's normal damage to the enemy and costs 20 chi. The super attack scale can be upgraded in the level up menu.

3.4 Super Heal

Tap the super heal button to heal the character at the cost of chi. The super heal button restores 25 points to the character's health and costs 40 chi. The super heal amount can be upgraded in the level up menu.

3.5 Boost

Tap the boost button to increase the character's walk speed by 4 at the cost of chi. When the player is boosting, they will encounter no enemies, but they will stop boosting when they reach the boss. Boosting costs 10 chi per second.

3.6 Game Info

Tap the game info button to view the level and overall game information. The panel displays the current level, the character's progress through the level as a percentage, the overall distance left to finish the game, the number of enemies and bosses the player killed, and the chosen difficulty. Since the game still runs when the player is not playing, the panel is useful for checking the character's progress and kills when the player comes back to the game.

3.7 Level Up

Tap the level up button to open the character level up menu. The level up menu displays the current stats that can be leveled up and the character's current stats. The stats that can upgraded are:

• Health: The character's maximum health. Costs 1 experience point to upgrade by 1 point.
• Stamina: The character's maximum stamina. Costs 1 experience point to upgrade by 1 point.
• Chi: The character's maximum chi. Costs 1 experience point to upgrade by 1 point.
• Super HEAL: The amount super healing heals the character. Costs 1 experience point to upgrade by 1 point.
• Super DMG: The amount that super attack scales normal damage. Costs 1 experience point to upgrade by 1 percent.
• Normal DMG: The amount of damage a normal attack can inflict. Costs 1 experience point to upgrade by 1 point.
• Exp Rate: The percent at which the player gains experience points by killing enemies. Costs 1 experience point to upgrade by 1 percent.

The player can spend experience points to upgrade the character's stats. Experience points are granted by killing enemies and bosses. The panel with the EXP icon below the status bars indicates the player's current experience points.

3.8 Quicksave

Tap the quicksave button to save the game. The game can be saved at any time, but the player can only have one save file at a time. To continue the game from where the player left off after quicksaving, select "CONTINUE" on the title screen.

3.9 Save

Tap the save button to export the save file. The save file can be imported into the game to continue the game from where the player left off. The save file is a JSON file that contains the character's current stats, experience points, and level. The save file can be imported by clicking on the "LOAD GAME" button on the title screen.

4 Characters

4.1 Sun Wu Kong (Monkey King)

• Health: 100
• Stamina: 100
• Chi: 100
• Damage: 10

4.2 Zhu Ba Jie (Pigsy)

• Health: 120
• Stamina: 80
• Chi: 100
• Damage: 10

4.3 Sha Wu Jing (Sandy)

• Health: 100
• Stamina: 110
• Chi: 80
• Damage: 20

4.4 Tang San Zang

• Health: 80
• Stamina: 100
• Chi: 120
• Damage: 10

4.5 Bai Long Ma (White Dragon Horse)

• Health: 100
• Stamina: 120
• Chi: 80
• Damage: 10

5 Levels

5.1 Difficulties

• Easy
  • 90 seconds per level
  • 1 hour to complete the game
  • Stamina drains after 90 seconds
  • Health and chi is full after 30 seconds (if regenerating)
  • Average 10 enemies per level
  • 2.5 experience points per enemy killed
  • 7.5 experience points per boss killed
• Normal
  • 1 day per level
  • 40 days to complete the game
  • Stamina drains after 12 hours
  • Health and chi is full after 1 hour (if regenerating)
  • Average 10 enemies per day
  • 0.003 experience points per enemy killed
  • 1 experience points per boss killed
• Realistic
  • 6 months per level
  • 17 years to complete the game
  • Stamina drains after 30 days
  • Health and chi is full after 6 hours (if regenerating)
  • Average 1 enemies every 3 days
  • 0.00003 experience points per enemy killed
  • 1 experience points per boss killed

6 Acknowledgements

• My Journey to the West: Copyright (c) Minh Hua
• Fireball Effect - 2 by Cethiel
• Cosmic Time - Magic Effect by Cethiel
• Weapon Slash - Effect by Cethiel
• Earth Impact - Magic Effect by Cethiel
• Nature - Magic Effect by Cethiel
• Water Magic Effect by Cethiel
• Explode effect by knik1985
• Golden UI - Bigger Than Ever edition by Buch
• 2D Fruits by ScratchIO
• Cheeky Monkey by Crisisworks
• Buddha statues (16x16) by MoikMellah
• Footprint/ shoeprint silhouette by KobatoGames
• Animated Horse by ScratchIO
• Dungeon Odissey Monsters tiles by David E. Gervais
• Backgrounds and title logo generated using DALL-E 2.